Fenek Solère - Rising

‘ Da ’, he said, then listening intently. ‘ Ublyudok! ’ he spat, big knuckles drumming on the steering wheel. In the back, two other Bloc men sat in silence. ‘Get out and follow’, he commanded. ‘Don’t lose them.’ The rear doors swung open, dispatching fresh attack dogs into the metropolitan centre of the former Leningrad.

Tom and Ekaterina reached Nevsky junction, turning right toward Kazan, rain lacerating them like iced grapeshot. They pushed on over the first canal bridge, looking back to see if they were still being followed. Their predators were clearly visible, wolf-like eyes intent on their prey. Bogdan was 30 metres distant, talking breathlessly into his mobile, giving directives to the foot soldiers. His stride widened as he strove to close on them. His accomplices had successfully circumnavigated the Admiralty and were now on the opposite side of Nevsky.

Poised on the curb, waiting for gaps in the hurtling headlights, Tom and Ekaterina began running, bolting between oncoming cars, slipping between the shadows cast by the Cathedral’s colonnades. Consumed by narrow passages, Tom felt that familiar uneasiness which always overcame him in enclosed spaces. He was straining to keep up, thigh muscles choking on lactic acid. Torrential rain fell as Tom stopped, slumped against a wall, bracing himself, the nausea overwhelming. Ekaterina waited.

‘You shouldn’t have drunk so much!’

He rolled his eyes and vomited. ‘I’m too old for this’, he confessed to himself. Some 20 metres on, an archway gave to the left. The entrance was partially cordoned off by concrete slabs. Ekaterina handled these hurdles with relative ease, whilst he stumbled through them, heavy-legged, just making out the girl’s pale features refracting in the air blowing west from the streetlights on Nevsky.

‘If we go this way’, she was saying, ‘we go back to the street and come behind them. They will never know.’ Tom nodded numbly. Ekaterina began clambering over some railings. Tom, gasping, copied her, heart thumping, spitting bile.

For a moment they stood side by side, cars chasing light snakes over the tarmac. Crossing to the eastern side of the Gribeodova to catch a lift, Arkady’s black car skidded to a halt in front of them. He was hitting the horn, yelling for them to get inside, but they had already taken off down the canal bank, past the Sakura, slapping steps weaving around a growling motorbike. Bogdan and the others emerged from the crowd of onlookers and gave chase in a flurry of hats and coats.

Ekaterina grabbed Tom’s damp sleeve, pulling him towards the entrance of the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Disappearing into the congregation, they joined pilgrims squeezing through the narrow doorway, shuffling into a vestibule where carved figures flew about the walls. The smell of sodden wool permeated the air. Within the candlelit sepulchre, a circle of crow-robed priests stood in silent contemplation, their beards black, cloth veils falling from their headgear. The low mutter of prayer began resonating in the gloom. Tom stared upwards, clouds of blue incense obscuring the mosaic of the Christ Pantocrator, wondering if this was a sanctuary or a gilded trap. He noted that Ekaterina’s face was flushed with exertion as they approached Alexander II’s shrine, self-conscious footfalls resounding on Italian marble. She slid her hand into his.

‘Who were those people?’

‘Bloc partisans.’

‘More like gruppirovka.’ Tom looked blank. ‘Gangs!’

• Behind the scenes, nationalist sympathisers in the Russian High Command were taking control of the new military command structure, at strategic, operational, and brigade level;

• Vitaly Milonov, a former St Petersburg Councillor and lawmaker for Vladimir Putin, makes a return to the public sphere, advocating for the celebration of St John of Kronstadt, a man connected with the Black Hundred;

• Thousands flock to Tolyatti where Mary’s icon is raised, symbolically offering protection against hostile forces;

• ‘Resistance’, Vitaly Averyanov, President of the Institute of Dynamic Conservatives, repeated again and again, ‘is a sign of life.’

Grigori paced back and forth, eagerly awaiting the call from Federal Security headquarters in Lubyanka Square, Moscow. ‘Hydra goes green’, was the message. ‘We are sanctioning the assassination of President Babel’, a dry voice confirmed after giving the appropriate Syny Otechestva , Sons of the Fatherland, authentication code. ‘Spetsnaz units will be deployed to assist the operation.’

‘Date, time, and location?’

‘Babel will be attending a dinner party organised by his fellow tribesman Mikhail Mirilashvili at a private house on Bolshoy Prospekt tomorrow. He will take the Blagoveshchenskiy Most crossing, following the university embankment route and liniya. ’

‘And your men will be the same ones you used in Makhachkala?’

‘Yes, they are already in the city and will contact you.’

‘I will tell the Dutchman to be ready.’

‘Remember, it is important we have clean hands’, the Muscovite threatened.

‘Do not worry’, Grigori confided. ‘This man was trained by the Norwegian Forsvarets Spesialkommando.’

Then, after raising a private toast to the mission’s success, he called Alyosha, pressing him for a show of strength on the street as a diversion. ‘We need everyone out on Nevsky. Massed flags, music, and weapons. Leave no one behind. Every man, woman and child, understand?’ Alyosha agreed. ‘Make sure Martsinkevich’s FAMAT 18 hard men are there, this will be war.’

‘Understood!’

Ekaterina lived in a nineteenth-century apartment off the Ulitsa Yakubbovicha. They went up four flights of spiral steps with twisting banisters. Drafty French windows opened out onto a narrow balcony with a split plinth overlooking an inner courtyard. Throwing open the shutters, her graphite pupils caught the starlight. ‘You will be safe here’, she said confidently. ‘There are no monsters.’

‘Monsters?’

‘What Glukhovsky calls the Dark Ones, Homo novus —the next stage in evolution.’

‘You like Metro 2033 , too?’

‘Of course, it is an allegory for our times. We are like the hero Artyom battling another species. Take a look around you; they are rising. We fooled ourselves into thinking we had rid ourselves of the people who genocided millions upon millions of real Russians after their so-called Worker’s Revolution. But we were wrong; they have returned even stronger, with new allies from the south and east. And soon, just like Wells’ Morlocks, they will be hunting us in the streets.’

‘You are certainly one of the Eloi’, he flattered her.

They sat and talked. She was descended from an old Leningrad family, her great grandmother having attended the Smolny Institute for young noblewomen.

‘Have you been active in the movement long?’

‘It depends what you mean by active.’

‘Meetings, marches, that kind of thing.’

‘Since my early teens, I guess. Just as soon as I read Kollar’s epic poem Slavy dcera , Slava’s daughter.’

‘And your friends?’

‘Most, yes, but my grandfather is the most influential on me.’

‘Parents?’

She went quiet and changed the subject.

The flat comprised three rooms. A cramped lounge, with an antique clock, an Afghan rug, and bookshelves filled to bursting; a dining room-cum-kitchen with a small stove and Formica table littered with pots, pans, herbs, oils, and vinaigrette; and sleeping quarters barely large enough for a double bed.

He paid particular attention to some of her own art hung over the fireplace whilst Ekaterina put on Halgrath’s dark ambient composition, Out of Time.